


Not Her

by gleefulmusings



Series: Facets [14]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-13
Updated: 2014-06-13
Packaged: 2018-02-04 11:50:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 443
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1777978
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gleefulmusings/pseuds/gleefulmusings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It wasn't even so much that it was her. It was that it wasn't her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not Her

Buffy the Vampire Slayer was content.

She had been back in Sunnydale for a week after spending a horrible summer with her father in Los Angeles. School was a welcome relief, as were her reaffirmed relationships with her two best friends. Her reunion with Xander and Willow had necessitated ice cream nights and hair-braiding and grand re-tellings of all minutiae which had occurred during their weeks apart. As weird as the Hellmouth was, Buffy finally felt like she belonged somewhere.

She looked up from crunching on her apple, carefully avoiding a questionable brown spot, and found Willow poking a decidedly Not Amused Xander in the ribs.  
  
“Tell me,” the redhead wheedled.  
  
“Huhdfsdfb.” The intelligence of the grunted syllables was lost in his mastication of a ridiculously large and probably unhealthy portion of rubberized chicken à la king.  
  
“What’s going on?” Buffy asked.  
  
“Xander likes a girl,” Willow sang.  
  
Buffy and Xander both rolled their eyes.  
  
“How can you tell?” the Slayer demanded.  
  
Willow shrugged. “Because I’ve known him since he was in Pull-Ups?” She turned back to him. “You, um, did stop wearing those, right?”  
  
He nodded. “A few years ago."  
  
Buffy stared.  
  
“A _few_ can encompass any number of years!” he protested.  
  
“It’s typically three,” Willow retorted.  
  
“But it doesn’t _have_ to be.”  
  
“Then you should have said _several_.”  
  
“I laugh in the face of your grammar.”  
  
“Uh huh," Buffy drawled. "So who’s the girl?”

She prayed it wasn’t her. She thought she had nipped that in the bud already and she never wanted to hurt Xander again in that way. He responded by stuffing a mouthful of potatoes au gratin in his mouth. She took note of his pinking cheeks and stifled a sigh.  
  
Willow proceeded to harangue him for another seven minutes before realizing that, whoever Mystery Date was, Xander wasn’t ready to give her up. Buffy counted to ten and stole a peek at him, knowing that once the interrogation was over it would be impossible for his eyes not to seek out the flavor of the moment. She steeled herself.  
  
She followed his eyes and swallowed a gasp as a waterfall of sienna waves swirled into focus.

Oh. No.

Then the telltale sound of derisive laughter assaulted her ears.

Oh, _hell_ no.

As if on cue, Cordelia tossed her hair and threw a glance over her shoulder, meeting his eyes. For once, her gaze wasn’t mocking.  
  
Buffy bit her lip to force herself to feel a different kind of pain than the one she was currently experiencing.

Xander liked a girl, a girl who wasn’t a demon and who might just like him back.

And it wasn’t her.


End file.
